The Elk River chemical disaster, which unfolded a year and four days ago, is one of those crises too terrible to waste. Here are five surprising lessons we need to learn from the spill, which contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians.

The federal Food and Drug Administration has quietly reaffirmed its position that Americans are not being harmed by bisphenol A, a synthetic estrogen that is an essential ingredient of the epoxy coating that lines the insides of most food cans made in the U.S despite a massive body of evidence that suggests otherwise.

Dr. Theo Colborn was the Rachel Carson of a generation of environmentalists who work on toxic chemicals, pollution and health. She inspired hard work, inventive investigation and courage across the entire environmental movement.

Between entertaining, shuttling kids and visiting elderly parents and other family members most of us don’t have the time and energy to whip up from-scratch meals several times a day. Yet everybody has to eat.

This year, instead of resorting to your local fast food joint, use EWG’s Food Scores database to pack the fridge and pantry with quick and healthier snacks and meals. Our new, easy-to-use food database rates more than 80,000 foods on nutrition and ingredients of concern. It also estimates the degree to which each product has been processed.

Depending on who you talk to, the seven grams of saturated fat in that tablespoon of butter may be a significant contributor to heart disease – the number one cause of death in the United States – or just a delicious morsel, especially if you can get it from organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised cows.

EWG’s Food Scores shows that 100 percent of stuffing mixes have added sugar in them. Not only that, but nearly half of them have ingredients I’d rather avoid because they raise potentially “higher” concerns for health, including links to cancer, and about a quarter have ingredients that raise “moderate” concerns.

If you’re reading this, you probably don’t want to eat mystery chemicals. And you’d like to eat food, not food-ish stuff full of synthetics. But which food chemicals are most important to avoid? EWG’s Dirty Dozen List of Food Additives is here to help.

“Natural flavor” is the fourth most common ingredient listed in EWG’s Food Scores, which rates more than 80,000 foods on their degree of nutrition, ingredient concerns and processing concerns. But what is “natural flavor” exactly? Are natural flavors really better than artificial flavors?

What does it take for a small Caribbean nation to implement strong, sustainable and popular ocean conservation practices? A team of experts, an island community dedicated to preserving its way of life and one dynamic activist, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.